Homily on the Holy Sabbath (St. John of Damascus)

Homily on the Holy Sabbath 

Discourse 4

By St. John of Damascus

“Who can speak of the mighty works of the Lord and make His praises heard?” (Ps. 105:2). Who can describe the vast sea of His goodness? Who can express His boundless love for His servants? Who can speak of His condescension, which surpasses all understanding? Who can describe His compassion toward us and the unspeakable care that flows from it?

There is no one — even if he speaks the tongues of angels and of men, even if he has gathered within himself all human knowledge. For though the spirit is willing, the tongue is weak to speak and the mind dim to comprehend. Truly great is the mystery of the divine economy: the mind cannot contain it, but only faith can receive it — and it requires purity of soul, accompanied by fear of God and longing for Him.

For it is not possible to attain purification of the soul in any other way than through divine fear and love. Nor is it possible to receive divine illumination unless the faculty of the soul’s vision is first purified. For the divine is inaccessible to the profane, and only those who are pure in heart will see God, as Christ, who is Truth itself, said (Matt. 5:8).

Likewise, at the Theophany granted long ago to Moses in the burning bush, he is first commanded to remove his sandals, and only then to approach the symbol he beheld (Ex. 3:2). The removal of the sandals signifies the casting off of dead and earthly-minded thoughts (Gregory, Oration II on Pascha). And again, when Mount Sinai was enveloped in smoke during the giving of the Law, not all ascended, but the ascent was regulated according to each one’s purification. If, then, even in the symbols purification from every stain was required, how pure and God-like must those be who are to approach the true and original realities?

The Descent Into Hades of the Risen One (Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani)

The Descent Into Hades of the Risen One

By Metropolitan Chrysostomos III of Mani

Christ, by His crucifixion and His subsequent three-day Resurrection from the dead, literally shattered Hades - death itself. This is the supernatural, great event, the divine Mystery of the God-man.

Saint John Chrysostom writes: “The death of the Lord put death to death” (P.G. 62, 58).

A fundamental article and rule of Christian teaching and faith is that Christ descended into Hades.

Christ Himself even foretells His descent into Hades in a parabolic way: “For as Jonah the prophet was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Matt. 12:40; Jonah 1:15–2:1).

It is characteristic that in the introductory prayers of every Divine Liturgy, the priest censes the Holy Table—  which symbolizes the tomb of Christ — and says: “In the tomb bodily, but in Hades with the soul as God.”

Homily at the Procession with the Epitaphios on Great Friday 2026 (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Homily at the Procession with the Epitaphios 

(Delivered on April 10, 2026)

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

At the outset, I wish you all many years, with health, strength, and inspiration in your work.

Great Friday, for the Orthodox Church — and for Nafpaktos — is not a day of sorrow and grief, but a day of triumph; for Christ, by His death on the Cross, destroyed every kind of death —psychological and spiritual — and showed us the way to transcend the problems of our life, that is, how to move from the level of the senses and emotions to the inner, spiritual, theological level. It is a path of ascent toward our own resurrection.

During the days of Christ’s Passion in Jerusalem, as we have seen, three realities prevailed: the human, the religious that became demonic, and the theological.

The human element appeared in Pilate, Herod, and others who were concerned with power and personal interests and were indifferent to the death of an innocent man.

The religious element, which was transformed into something demonic, appeared in the Scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the Jews, and in Judas, into whom Satan entered in order to betray Christ.

The theological element appeared most clearly in Christ, who faced everything with silence and with word, with patience and a God-like stance, and who conquered unjust authority and demonic energy by His divinity.

Homily Over the Epitaphios (St. Sergius Mechev)

 

Homily Over the Epitaphios 

(Delivered in 1929) 

 

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

Now the God-man has need of our participation, of our love, just as every human being in his time has need of it. He who came into the world to serve us, who gave His soul for the deliverance of many, who endured insults and blows for our sake, betrayal and abandonment by all, and a shameful death — now asks for our help, our participation in His burial. And just now the Church, with weeping and lamentation, has offered Him the funeral hymn together with Joseph, together with Nicodemos. Yet these funeral hymns were accompanied and pierced through by other hymns, still quiet and indistinct, speaking yet of the future, but proclaiming with certainty the Resurrection: “This Sabbath is most blessed, on which Christ, having fallen asleep, shall rise on the third day.” “Why do you, O disciples, mingle myrrh with merciful tears? The Angel, shining in the tomb, speaks to the Myrrhbearing women: Behold the tomb and understand, for the Savior is risen from the tomb,” — so we sang at Matins, and just now we proclaimed: “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered” (verse at the Alleluia of the Apostle). Still more deeply and clearly do the hymns of the Resurrection sound at today’s Vespers and then at the Liturgy, where we hear the joyful hymn of the Resurrection: “Arise, O God, judge the earth, for You shall inherit all nations,” and the Gospel of this day already fully reveals the joy of the Resurrection. The Midnight Office will still be sorrowful, but then at Matins the joy is fully revealed, and we sing the victorious hymn: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death.” Such also is our whole life. We must walk in it in repentance and be crucified with Christ. There is no other way. “In the world you will have tribulation,” the Savior told us (John 16:33); and “through narrow gates” must we enter into eternal life, for “wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in by it” (Matt. 7:13). But as we walk this path, we must gradually begin to feel also the joy of the Resurrection.

Homily on Great Friday (Righteous Alexei Mechev)

Homily on Great Friday*

By Righteous Alexei Mechev

What a sorrowful sight is before our eyes! Our Savior is in the tomb. In the tomb is our Joy, the Treasure of our heart. But how could You, our Consolation, be enclosed in this small tomb? Is this the place for You? You, while living on earth, gave life to all, and now You Yourself lie lifeless. You dried the tears of all, and now You cast Your beloved ones into tears for You. Is this Your place? Here is the place for us, mortals, not for You, the Immortal; for us with corruptible and sinful bodies, for us sinners justly condemned to death, and not for You, the Most Holy and Sinless.

Brethren! Let us weep and lament: it is we, by our sins, who have bound the Sinless One in the bonds of death; it is we, condemned to death, who compelled Him to descend to the gates of death; for us, whom Hades was ready to devour, He descended in soul into Hades, while in body He lies before us.

O Divine, inexhaustible and ineffable Love! Sweetest Jesus! How greatly You have loved man — this most insignificant and ungrateful creature. For him You Yourself became man, in order to bring him into communion with God; You Yourself suffered, to deliver him from eternal sufferings; You Yourself died, that he might live forever; You Yourself descended into Hades, that he might never be there. Man lost everything through sin — and You restore everything to him — and how do You restore it?

Homily One on Great Saturday (St. Innocent of Kherson)

Homily on Great Saturday

Discourse 1

By Saint Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson and Tauride

“The great Moses mystically prefigured this day, saying: and God blessed the seventh day. For this is the blessed Sabbath; this is the day of rest, on which the Only-begotten Son of God rested from all His works, through the dispensation of death, keeping the Sabbath in the flesh, and returning again to what He was” (Great Saturday Vespers, sticheron idiomelon 4).

Such is the greatness of the present day! The past days were great by labors and activity, but this one is great by rest. Great: for in it He rested Who is above all and everything; He rested when He had accomplished all; He rested in order thereafter never to rest for the good of the human race. The Church herself, throughout all ages from the beginning of the world, finds only one day with which the present may be compared. That is the seventh day of creation, on which, according to Moses, “God… rested… from all His works which He had made” (Gen. 2:2). How great must that day be! Yet even it was less than the present. Today’s rest is greater than that; for the second labor was greater than the first. It was easier to create the whole world and man than to redeem them: in Paradise there was no cross for man; but on Golgotha there was the cross even for the God-man. And after this great labor of the Cross, this very day was chosen for rest! God the Creator, after six days of work, rested on one — the seventh; and God the Redeemer, after many days of labor, chose for rest no more than a single day — the same seventh! O sun, stand still; prolong, precious day! Let the rest of the Divine Sufferer be prolonged! Let these wounds be closed! Let the blood cease to flow!

Homily on Great Saturday (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

On Great Saturday

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

We have now accompanied the Lord; we have beheld His mysterious image of the Resurrection. This is a wondrous and fearful night, in which began the universal process of the overturning of the cosmos. The true world revolution takes place without gunfire and the roar of weapons, but in the silence of a cave on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It is invisible to all — both to angels and to men. When God acts, He speaks through deeds — through reality itself. From that very night when God created the world out of nothing, He now reshapes and recreates the world, broken by the ancient transgression of Adam and Satan.

And from this moment, from this very night, begins the process of resurrection from the dead. We know that Christ rose from the dead as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. First is Christ, and after Him will follow all people — both those who belong to Christ and those who have rejected Him. All received the gift of being in their birth, and all will receive the gift of resurrection. This gift — the restoration of our bodies — is given freely to all, and it takes place on the great Paschal night, when Christ within Himself restores humanity anew.

The Passion of Christ, The Lamentations of the Epitaphios, The Entombment (Photios Kontoglou)

The post-Byzantine fresco of the Apokathelosis, painted by the venerable Parthenios Skourtos (mid-18th century) in the Katholikon of the Skete of Kavsokalyva, inspired Photois Kontoglou.

The Passion of Christ

(Column written for Proia in 1934)

By Photis Kontoglou

“In this world my eyes have seen many things, my ears have heard many things; like every man I have read a multitude of books written by the most worthy people of every place. And yet, every time these days of the Passion of Christ come, everything fades away, and my heart falls into a sweet sorrow.

Just as winter comes each year, just as the equinox comes and the earth changes its face and people are affected by the moon, by the stars, and by the comets that cross their path, so too Great Week comes like a sooty night — but behind it there flickers the gentle star of hope.”

The Miracles of the Holy Light (Dr. Haralambos M. Bousias)

 

Dr. Haralambos M. Bousias,
Great Hymnographer of the Church of Alexandria

The miracle of the Holy Light took place for the first time at the Tomb of Jesus, when His Resurrection was accompanied by an abundant light of incomparable brightness. In the Gospel of John we read that “Mary Magdalene came early, while it was still dark, to the tomb.”[1] Mary Magdalene went to the Tomb before it had yet dawned, that is, at night. But when she saw the “stone taken away,” that is, removed, she ran to announce it to the Apostle Peter, who together with John followed her. John, with his youthful vigor, running faster than the mature Peter, arrived first at the tomb. Yet he did not enter, but “stooping down,”[2] after bending, he saw the linen cloths lying on the ground. Peter, who was running behind him with anxiety, entered the Tomb. But how, while deep darkness still prevailed, did John and Peter manage to see the interior of the tomb and the linen cloths that had wrapped Jesus? And especially John, who did not enter the Tomb?

The answer is given by Gregory of Nyssa in his work On the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, where he states that those who followed Peter that night believed in the Resurrection because the Tomb of Christ had been filled with Light, which was visible both spiritually and through the natural senses.[3]